


the first flute

by fourshoesfrank



Category: Original Work
Genre: Flutes, Gen, Instruments, both characters r autistic <3<3, inventions, uhhhhh i don't remember what this was for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27886717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourshoesfrank/pseuds/fourshoesfrank
Summary: found this. not sure what i wrote it for. enjoy some autistic prehistoric musicians
Relationships: just these two cavemen siblings
Kudos: 2





	the first flute

Chirp and Squawk were birthmates, born to the same mother at the same time.

Chirp came out of their mother first, sliding feet first from her womb into the pool of water that Mother was squatting in. Another woman, one of Mother's sisters, picked him up immediately and wrapped him with a soft deerskin blanket. Squawk followed moments later, slowly exiting the womb headfirst and floating to the top of the water with their arms waving frantically. 

Mother named them after the sounds a nearby bird had made as each baby came into the world. When Chirp arrived, the bird had only made a small sound of surprise; when Squawk came out, the bird had screamed and flown away. 

The birthmates looked a bit like birds themselves. They were almost identical in appearance, with the same long, beak-like noses, small brown eyes, and thin lips. Their hair on both their heads was the same brown color, like the bark of an oak tree, but Chirp's fell to his waist and Squawk kept their hair short, just to their shoulders. Their haircuts were the way that most members of their Clan were able to tell them apart. 

Chirp and Squawk did everything together. They learned to walk together, they learned to speak and sign together, they learned to hunt together, and they learned the history of their clan together, side by side. 

They were sitting in front of Elder She-Tree every time the moon hid itself, listening to the old woman recount the stories of how the Old Clan had traveled across the ocean in huge, magical boats until they reached the land that the New Clan lived in. Elder She-Tree told the children about the first hunters, the first fires, and the first articles of clothing. There was much history to learn.

Squawk paid attention, but not to the stories themselves. They were captivated by the drumbeats that always accompanied the Elder's lessons. The gentle, flowing cadence of a love story; the urgent beats of a fight scene; the strange, unsyncopated rhythm that foreshadowed a betrayal. Squawk wanted to be able to make themself a drum so they could create story beats like that. For many years, their only request on their birthday or any other holiday was, "I want to have a drum."

Chirp liked the words of the stories. He memorized his two favorites, about the birth of the first bird and the reason why the New Clan didn't use big boats anymore. Within two moon cycles, Chirp could tell the stories just as well as the Elder could. He wouldn't dare do it in front of other people, though, out of respect for the Elders' role in the Clan. Young people were not supposed to tell the old stories. 

Chirp also refused to recite the stories in front of other people because he did not know the hand signs that went along with the words. The Story signs were different than regular, everyday signs, so only the Elders were supposed to know them. Chirp didn't know them because he never looked at Elder She-Tree when she told the stories. He knew that he was supposed to look at her, because the hand movements and facial expressions of the storyteller added to the experience, but he could not make himself understand the words and interpret the old signs and facial movements at the same time. 

Chirp became a bone-shaper. He took the bones from the animals that other people had hunted and made them into tools that could be useful. The Clan only had two other bone-shapers, so there wasn't much competition. Chirp liked it that way. He liked his job.

Squawk grew up to be a drummer, unsurprisingly. They made their own drums from stretched boar skin and hollowed-out stones, and they hit the drums with rounded sticks that had been hardened in a fire. Sometimes they borrowed bones from Chirp and hit the drums with those. 

Squawk's main job as a drummer was to provide the mood during Clan gatherings. For feasts, they brought out several drums and played simple, uplifting beats; for funeral pyres, the beats were quiet but fast-paced; and the drumbeat of an after-hunt party was loud and full of complicated rhythms for the hunters to dance to. 

They did not play while the Elders told the children their stories. That would be rude. They had been told all their life that they were being rude, even when they hadn't meant to be. Especially when they hadn't meant to be. 

Chirp and Squawk almost never meant to be rude, or loud, or annoying; they couldn't help it. The two of them knew they how they were supposed to behave, but something in their brain insisted on doing other things instead. When Squawk was supposed to be sitting still, meditating, they were tapping their fingers together to create patterns with the sound instead. When Chirp was supposed to be listening to his customers explaining why they didn't like the bone tools he had given them, he was already thinking about the next set of tools he would make. 

When they were small children, they had never been where they were supposed to be, because they kept wandering off the path in pursuit of a pretty insect or interesting deer. They hadn't played with the other children their age either. Chirp and Squawk had kept to themselves as children, because each of them was the only one who understood the other's strange ways.

-

"Squawk! Look what I have! Look at this!"

Squawk awoke from a lovely dream about fishing in one of the many nearby rivers. They didn't open their eyes; they were still living in the dream world for a few moments after they woke up. They'd been woken by their brother's excited shouting, because that was the way they woke up every day. The two of them didn't even share a sleeping place anymore, but Chirp still managed to wake up before Squawk every morning and find them without fail. For nineteen summers, this had been their morning routine. Chirp loved it. Squawk hates it. 

"What do you want?" the drummer grumbled, pushing themself into a sitting position and shoving their deerskin blanket off to the side. They rubbed their eyes a few times to clear them of the fog of sleep, then they turned all their attention towards their brother. 

Chirp's face lit up like a birchwood fire as he began signing with one hand, talking about something he had done with a hollow bone during the night. His other hand was holding a long, thin piece of bone with holes drilled into it. Chirp was sucking on the end of the bone, so he was unable to speak out loud as he explained to Squawk what he'd done to it. 

"I made nine holes in it, because nine is the best number," he signed, "and I made a very small hole at the top that I made longer using some clay. Look! Here, I'll show you what it does."

Squawk nodded, now fully awake. "Show me," they requested. 

Chirp sat down cross-legged on the floor of Squawk's sleeping place. He lifted the bone to his lips and placed his fingers over all of the holes he'd made in it. His cheeks puffed out as he drew a breath in, held it for a moment, then blew it out into the bone. 

Squawk jumped back in surprise. The bone was making noise! It sounded like the wind brushing against a sharp tree branch, but not identical to that. Squawk had never heard anything quite like this bone. 

Chirp lifted one of his fingers off of the hole, and the noise changed! It became higher, but only slightly. Squawk was now staring at their brother and at the bone he was blowing into. This was music! How was he making music with just one bone?

Chirp's bone made noises that sounded exactly like the song that they had both loved when they were children. It was a berry-picking song, and the words were supposed to help children remember which berries were poisonous and which ones were not. Squawk still knew all the words, but they had almost forgotten the tune... until now. 

Chirp obviously had not forgotten. He made sounds with his breath-bone that sounded just like the berry song, but without words. When the song was finished, Chirp put down the bone and grinned at Squawk. 

"What do you think?" he asked. His hands were shaking so much that he had to try three times before his sibling understood the signs, but Chirp didn't seem to care. He was too excited. 

"I think you should give this bone a name, because soon everyone will want to have one."


End file.
